docs: agent-facing documentation for sei-load - #55
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Add a docs/ tree + root AGENTS.md index so a cluster of perf-benchmarking +
Sei-expert agents can autonomously configure, run, reproduce, and interpret
load experiments:
AGENTS.md (index) + docs/{01-mental-model, 02-running, 03-config-reference,
04-workload-model, 05-reproducibility, 06-measurement-metrics,
07-experiment-playbook, 08-limits-boundaries}.
Authored by matched experts grounded in source; cross-reviewed by a full
cohort (systems accuracy, Sei/EVM mechanism, OTel metrics+queries, agent
usability). Metric/PromQL names use the real exported wire names
(seiload_ namespace + unit suffixes). The StorageRW key/size/op contention
axes (§04, §07) are marked '(delivered by PLT-465)' — they parse but do not
affect generated txs on main until #54 lands.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
PR SummaryLow Risk Overview
The
No runtime or config behavior changes — documentation only. Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit 7db3631. Bugbot is set up for automated code reviews on this repo. Configure here. |
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Docs-only PR, but large portions of the new "authoritative" agent documentation describe code that does not exist on the base branch (open-loop dispatcher/scheduler, a utils/rng sub-stream system, a --workers flag), while simultaneously telling agents that the StorageRW contention/size/op axes — which are implemented on base — do nothing. As written the docs would send an agent down invalid experiment paths and produce copy-pasted commands that fail outright.
Findings: 9 blocking | 9 non-blocking | 10 posted inline
Blockers
- Verification method problem, not a single line: the PR body says the docs were "authored by matched experts grounded in source" and "verified against main at doc time", but the four largest claim clusters (open-loop arrival,
utils/rngsub-streams,--workers, and the PLT-465 "no effect on main" banners) are each contradicted by the base tree. Much of the wrong content matches the aspirational package docs insender/doc.goandtypes/scenario.gorather than the implementations. Before re-review, please re-derive every claim from implementation files (main.go flag registration, config/settings.go, sender/*.go, generator/generator.go, generator/scenarios/StorageRW.go) rather than from package doc comments, and drop or clearly mark as "planned" anything that has no implementation. - 8 blocking issue(s) flagged inline on specific lines.
Non-blocking
- [suggestion]
docs/04-workload-model.md:68citesTestStorageRWContentionSweepas "not on main" — it exists atgenerator/scenarios/StorageRW_test.go:138. ConverselyTestStorageRWKeySizeIndependenceandTestStorageRWOpIndependence(cited at 04:87 and 04:98) do not exist anywhere in the repo. Cite only tests that exist. - [suggestion]
docs/04-workload-model.md:35attributes a "StorageRW scaffold" note togenerator/scenarios/doc.go; that string does not appear in that file (or any doc.go). Several other citations in 04/05 point at files that don't exist (utils/rng/rng.go,utils/rng/streams.go). A quick pass asserting everypath:linecitation resolves would catch these. - [suggestion]
docs/02-running.md:92-95anddocs/03-config-reference.md:119-124both state thatSettings.Validaterejects an unknownarrivalModeland rejectsopen_loopwith no finite rate.config/settings.go:54-60only checksMaxInFlight > 0. Agents told a guardrail exists will not check the combination themselves. - [suggestion]
docs/03-config-reference.md:181shows"keyDistribution": { "Name": "uniform" }with norecordCount, anddocs/04-workload-model.md:49saysrecordCount = 0(with a keyDistribution) yields slot 0 / 100% conflict.config/config.go:216-226rejects both half-configured pairings outright (keyDistribution is set but recordCount is 0, and the mirrored sizeDistribution/sizeBuckets cases). The examples as written fail config load. - 2 suggestion(s)/nit(s) flagged inline on specific lines.
- 3 non-blocking pre-existing issue(s) listed below under pre-existing issues.
Pre-existing issues
- [suggestion]
sender/doc.goandtypes/scenario.go(base branch) document the open-loop Dispatcher, drop-and-count semantics,SequenceIndex, andIntendedSendTime = t0 + i/lambdaas if implemented, but no such code exists. These aspirational package docs appear to be the source of most of this PR's inaccuracies and should be marked as planned design or removed. - [suggestion]
config/config.go:204— the SizeBuckets validation error message says "exceeds the 1 MiB (%d-byte) cap" whilemaxCalldataPadBytes = 128 << 10(128 KiB, config/config.go:185). The message misstates the cap by 8x. - [suggestion]
config/settings.goexposesArrivalModeland validates nothing about it;main.go:278uses it only to gate the inclusion tracker's latency sample, andmain.go:379hardcodesRunSummary{ArrivalModel: closed_loop}. Setting--arrival-model open_looptherefore changes inclusion-latency recording while the run summary reportsclosed_loop— an internally inconsistent state independent of this PR.
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| ## Standing caveats (true on `main` today) | ||
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| - **StorageRW distribution/size/op axes require PLT-465 (#54, unmerged).** `keyDistribution`, `sizeDistribution`, `sizeBuckets`, `recordCount`, and `operations` parse but **do not affect generated transactions** on main — StorageRW emits a fixed scaffold (slot 0, empty pad, all-`rmw`). See [docs/04-workload-model.md](docs/04-workload-model.md). |
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[blocker] This caveat is inverted — the StorageRW axes are implemented on the base branch of this PR. generator/scenarios/StorageRW.go:163 calls cfg.KeyDistribution.SampleIndex(rng, cfg.RecordCount), :178 calls cfg.SizeDistribution.SampleIndex(...), :142 calls s.operations.Select(rng), and config/operation.go exists with full validation. PLT-465 has already landed; git show <base>:generator/scenarios/StorageRW.go | grep -c SampleIndex returns 2.
This matters more than a stale note: an agent reading this will skip the entire contention/size/op experiment program described in §04 and §07 because it believes the knobs are inert. The same inverted warning appears at docs/03-config-reference.md:151,152,187,247, docs/04-workload-model.md:7,35,39,43,74,91,98,112, and docs/07-experiment-playbook.md:32,45,46 — all need removing, along with the "Sequencing" section of the PR description.
| - **Generator** (`generator.Generator`) produces `*types.LoadTx` values. Each | ||
| `Generate()` call draws from the seeded PRNG sub-streams (accounts, gas, key/ | ||
| size distributions) — this is the only place workload randomness is consumed. | ||
| - **Dispatcher** (`sender.Dispatcher`) owns the arrival timing. It runs in one of |
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[blocker] There is no sender.Dispatcher type in this repo, and no open-loop scheduler. Grepping the base tree: no Dispatcher declaration, no openLoopScheduler (referenced at line 69), no sender.Worker, no sender/worker.go, no semaphore-based admission, no drop-and-count.
What actually runs: main.go:341 starts gen.Run(ctx, rng, snd), which is a plain loop (generator/generator.go:181-204) that generates a tx and calls txSender.Send — which is ShardedSender.Send → TxsQueue.Push (sender/txs_queue.go:129), and Push blocks via ctrl.WaitUntil(... len(inner.txs) < q.capacity) when full. ShardedSender.Run (sender/sharded_sender.go:87-133) then does limiter.Wait → queue.PopReady in lockstep. That is the closed-loop model, unconditionally, regardless of --arrival-model.
Everything in this doc's "Open-loop (the fix)" section, the scheduled = dropped + admitted conservation model, SequenceIndex, and the IntendedSendTime = t₀ + i/λ glossary entry describe an unimplemented design. Doc 01 is the stated "read this first" foundation, so this propagates into 02, 05, 06, and 07. Please either mark the whole open-loop section as planned/not-yet-implemented, or hold this PR until the scheduler lands.
| | Flag | Short | Default | Meaning / effect | | ||
| |------|-------|---------|------------------| | ||
| | `--config` | `-c` | (required) | Path to the JSON config file. No default; run aborts if unset. | | ||
| | `--workers` | `-w` | `1` | Tasks (workers) **per endpoint**. Total senders = workers × endpoints. | |
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[blocker] --workers / -w does not exist. main.go:55-76 registers every flag and there is no workers entry; grep -rn TasksPerEndpoint --include=*.go . returns nothing at all, and config.Settings (config/settings.go:14-43) has no workers field.
This makes invocation #2 at line 108 (./build/seiload --config profiles/local.json --workers 50 --tps 100) fail immediately with unknown flag: --workers, and the same non-existent knob is recommended in the §5/§6 tables of docs/07-experiment-playbook.md ("Queue rising + TPS < λ ⇒ add --workers"). Remove the row, the example, and the downstream advice, or add the flag.
| | `--workers` | `-w` | `1` | Tasks (workers) **per endpoint**. Total senders = workers × endpoints. | | ||
| | `--tps` | `-t` | `0` | Target transactions/sec, shared across all workers (single rate limiter). `0` = no limit. Required (>0) for open-loop unless `--ramp-up`. | | ||
| | `--arrival-model` | | `closed_loop` | `open_loop` schedules tx *i* at t₀+i/λ and drops overdue txs; `closed_loop` is the legacy generate-then-send lockstep. See [03](03-config-reference.md#arrivalmodel). | | ||
| | `--max-in-flight` | | `10000` | **Open-loop only.** Max concurrent in-flight sends; txs that would exceed this at their scheduled instant are dropped and counted (the clock is never throttled). Ignored in closed-loop. | |
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[blocker] The semantics here are backwards. MaxInFlight is not open-loop-only and is never ignored: it is the capacity of the single send queue (sender/sharded_sender.go:35 → NewTxsQueue(cfg.Settings.MaxInFlight)), and TxsQueue.Push blocks the generator when that capacity is reached (sender/txs_queue.go:131). Nothing is dropped and nothing is counted — the exact backpressure behavior the doc says is avoided.
It also feeds inclusionRegistryCap at main.go:277. So the correct description is roughly "bound on queued+in-flight txs; the generator blocks when full," and the Open-loop dropped N txs log line referenced at line 120 and in docs/03-config-reference.md:558 is never emitted.
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| | Field (JSON key) | Type | Default | Effect on the run | | ||
| |------------------|------|---------|-------------------| | ||
| | `workers` | int | `1` | Tasks per endpoint. Total senders = workers × endpoints. (Struct field is `TasksPerEndpoint`.) | |
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[blocker] settings.workers does not exist and neither does the TasksPerEndpoint struct field — config.Settings (config/settings.go:14-43) has no such member and TasksPerEndpoint appears nowhere in the Go source. The annotated example at line 57 also sets "workers": 50, which is silently ignored (viper never reads it). Remove the row and the example key.
| independent sub-stream, derived by the **FROZEN** formula: | ||
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| ``` | ||
| substream(seed, streamID) = NewPCG(seed, splitmix64(fnv1a64(streamID))) |
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[blocker] The utils/rng package does not exist (ls utils/ has no rng directory; there is no rng.go, no streams.go, no splitmix64/fnv1a64), so this FROZEN derivation formula, the four-input one-way-door contract, and the eight-row stream-ID table at lines 73-84 all describe code that isn't in the repo.
What actually exists is a single shared PRNG: generator.ResolveSeed (generator/generator.go:244) → newSeededRand (:229) → mrand.New(mrand.NewPCG(seed, seed^0x9e3779b97f4a7c15)), threaded as one *mrand.Rand through Generator.Run into account selection and every scenario draw.
The practical consequences invert two load-bearing claims in this doc and §04:
- "Worker-count independence… adding workers does not shift any stream's sequence" — there is only one stream, and
config/doc.go:123-127states the opposite contract explicitly: "One stream serves every axis, every scenario, and account selection… adding, removing, or reweighting an axis changes the call order and shifts every other axis's sequence." docs/04-workload-model.md:87("the size draw rides sub-streamdist:%d:size… changing the size config never perturbs the key sequence") is therefore false —StorageRW.go:120-124warns that slot/pad/op share the run's single PRNG and reordering diverges replay. An agent following the §04 advice to "sweep one axis while holding the other's draw multiset fixed" will get a different key sequence in every arm.
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| - `sizeBuckets`: the histogram of candidate pad lengths in bytes, e.g. `[0, 64, 256, 1024]`. Each entry capped at 1 MiB (`config.go`). | ||
| - `sizeDistribution`: `uniform` or `zipfian`, selects which bucket index per tx. | ||
| - **Gas:** the pad's intrinsic cost is `4 gas per zero byte` (the base calldata gas schedule for zero bytes — this rate predates and is unchanged by EIP-2028, which only lowered the *non-zero* byte cost from 68→16) added on top of the 50k base: `GasLimit = 50000 + len(pad)*4` (PLT-465 branch, not on main). A larger pad → larger tx → more calldata gas, scaling block-space consumption per tx. |
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[blocker] The gas formula is wrong in three ways. generator/scenarios/StorageRW.go:135-138:
paddedPad := (uint64(len(pad)) + abiWord - 1) / abiWord * abiWord
auth.GasLimit = storageRWBaseGas + paddedPad*calldataFloorGasPerBytewith calldataFloorGasPerByte = 10 (:46, the EIP-7623 floor rate, per the comment at :35) and abiWord = 32 (:34). So the real formula is 50000 + ceil(len(pad)/32)*32*10, not 50000 + len(pad)*4 — 2.5× per byte plus word rounding. The parenthetical about EIP-2028 is also off-topic: the code deliberately charges the 7623 floor, not the legacy zero-byte rate.
This feeds directly into the §07 recipe-3 block-packing reasoning, so the error compounds. Same wrong rate at line 112.
| | `seiload_run_tps_final_per_second` | gauge | `{transactions}/s` | — | Peak observed overall TPS (10s sliding-window max) for the run. | | ||
| | `seiload_run_duration_seconds` | gauge | `s` | — | Wall-clock run duration. | | ||
| | `seiload_run_txs_accepted_total` | gauge | `{transactions}` (dropped) | — | Total txs accepted by endpoints over the run (collector's `totalTxs`). Gauge already named `…_total`; no extra suffix. | | ||
| | `seiload_run_txs_dropped_total` | gauge | `{transactions}` (dropped) | `arrival_model` | Open-loop txs `dropped` on in-flight saturation. | |
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[blocker] seiload_run_txs_dropped_total and seiload_run_txs_failed_total are always 0, and their arrival_model attribute is always closed_loop. main.go:379 builds summary := stats.RunSummary{ArrivalModel: config.ArrivalModelClosedLoop} and only ever populates the inclusion fields before collector.EmitRunSummary — summary.Dropped and summary.Failed are never assigned anywhere.
That invalidates the queries at lines 216-217, the "High seiload_run_txs_dropped_total with low SUT utilization" heuristic at line 230, and two rows of the §5 validity checklist in docs/07-experiment-playbook.md ("Drops are real shedding", "Sends not erroring en masse"). An agent will read a constant zero as "no load shed" and certify an invalid run. Please mark these as not-yet-populated, or drop them from the catalog until the dispatcher wires them.
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| In **closed-loop**, `seiload_inclusion_latency_seconds` is not recorded — read `included` from the | ||
| run-summary log line (`📦 Inclusion: included=…`) or compute the complement from outcomes: | ||
| `included = registered − expired − dropped_at_cap − inflight_at_shutdown`, where |
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[suggestion] dropped_at_cap is double-subtracted. The doc defines registered = succeeded − dropped_at_cap on the same line, and the Stage-2 identity at line 48 is registered == included + expired + inflight_at_shutdown. Solving gives included = registered − expired − inflight_at_shutdown; subtracting dropped_at_cap again undercounts inclusions by exactly that term.
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| Each tx carries a zero-filled calldata pad whose length is `sizeBuckets[sizeDistribution.SampleIndex(len(sizeBuckets))]` (`pickPad` — PLT-465 branch, not on main). The pad is an ignored `bytes _pad` argument on every method — it varies tx size without touching the storage logic. | ||
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| - `sizeBuckets`: the histogram of candidate pad lengths in bytes, e.g. `[0, 64, 256, 1024]`. Each entry capped at 1 MiB (`config.go`). |
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[suggestion] The per-entry cap is 128 KiB, not 1 MiB — maxCalldataPadBytes = 128 << 10 (config/config.go:185). The code's own error string at config/config.go:204 says "1 MiB", which is a pre-existing message bug; the doc appears to have copied it rather than the constant. Worth stating the real 128 KiB limit here so agents don't author sizeBuckets that fail validation.
2 participants
Comprehensive agent-facing documentation so a cluster of performance-benchmarking + Sei-expert agents can autonomously configure, run, reproduce, and interpret experiments with sei-load.
What
AGENTS.mdindex (entry point + reading order + fastest-path).docs/tree (8 sections): mental model (open-loop / coordinated omission; generator emits signals, verdicts are external), running, config reference, workload model (+ what the contention/size axes actually probe on Sei — block-stm/OCC, not DynamoDB-style throttling), reproducibility (seeded sub-streams, the honest determinism guarantee), measurement & metrics (exact emitted-series catalog + external-query guidance), experiment playbook (objective → knobs → run → interpret), limits & accepted boundaries.AGENTS.md.How it was built
Authored by matched experts grounded in source, then a full Coral cohort cross-review: systems-engineer (accuracy), sei-network-specialist (Sei mechanism), opentelemetry-expert (metric catalog + PromQL), prose-steward (agent-usability). Notable catches folded in: the PromQL examples now use the real
seiload_-prefixed wire names (the catalog was right but queries were querying base names → zero series), and a falseseiChainId'casing bug' claim was removed (Go binds case-insensitively — verified).§04/§07 document the StorageRW key/size/op contention axes, which are delivered by PLT-465 (#54, currently open) — on
mainthose config fields parse but don't affect generated txs. The docs mark this clearly; this PR should merge with or after #54 so the documented axes exist onmain.Docs-only; no code changes.
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